From the Back Room: More Buddy Clark in the 30s

I've been working my way through all of Buddy Clark's commercial recordings in the 1930s, finishing up with this selection of 21 songs for my "From the Back Room" series.

This set includes five songs with Xavier Cugat, four with Eddy Duchin, four more with a Johnny Hodges group chosen from the Ellington band, and eight with Buddy as the featured attraction on the label. The recordings date from 1934-38.

Solo Recordings I

We begin with a group of solo recordings by Clark. The first items go back to 1934, at the beginning of his recording career. (There are a few earlier recordings from Gus Arnheim with a vocal by "Buddy Clark" but the aural evidence is that this is not the same singer.)

Clark was a skillful and pleasing singer right from the start, although he took a little time to find his own style.

The first song is the Leo Robin-Ralph Rainger standard "June in January," written for Crosby to intone in Here is My Heart. Buddy is suitably Bing-like in his singing, probably an advantage in this release on the budget Banner label.

"June in January" was backed by another standard from the same film and authors, "With Every Breath I Take." On all these solo numbers, the accompaniment is unidentified.

We jump ahead to 1936 for the next release on Banner. One side has "The Touch of Your Lips" from the great songwriter-bandleader Ray Noble, who recorded it with his American band and the superb vocalist Al Bowlly. (Their version can be heard here.) 

The flip side is another fine piece called "Lost," by Macy O. Teetor, Johnny Mercer and Phil Ohman. It was a popular item with the bands back then. On these, Clark is very much his own singer.

With Xavier Cugat

It would hardly be accurate to label Clark a specialist in Latin music, but he does fit in nicely with Xavier Cugat's Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra in some unusual repertoire. These Victor sessions were in 1937.

Xavier Cugat before he had hair

"A Love Song of Long Ago" is the first selection. The label tells us that Sigmund Romberg wrote it for the film They Gave Him a Gun, a crime saga that seems pretty far afield from such Romberg fare as The Student Prince. But it's a waltz and the sort of thing that Cugie and Clark generally did well, although the tempo here is more lugubrious than might be ideal. Gus Kahn wrote the words.

"I Hum a Waltz" also came from a crime film - This Is My Affair. This number too is less lively than it might have been. Hollywood vets Mack Gordon and Harry Revel were the songwriters.

The bandleader kept the waltzes a-comin' with Agnes Sarli's "Hold Me Tight." Buddy does a professional job, but doesn't seem convinced of the material's merit.

Possibly at the same session, Buddy cut two other songs with Cugat. These were released on the NBC Thesaurus label, a transcription series for radio use. Victor produced the masters for the series.

I don't know a thing about the first song - "Where Did the Night Go?" Buddy didn't seem to know much about it, either - he sounds like he is sight-reading.

The other song is better, and better-known. "You Showed Me the Way" was composed by Ella Fitzgerald, Bubby Green, Teddy McRae and Chick Webb, and recorded by Ella with Chick's band. Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson also had a go at it.

With Eddy Duchin

Eddy Duchin

Buddy proved that he was not partisan by recording with one of Cugat's rivals among the swank New York bandleaders - Eddy Duchin - and during the same year as well. Eddy was at the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel at the time. Both baton-wielders recorded for Victor.

Eddy gets us started with a fox trot - "Ten O'Clock Town," from a musical with the unpromising name Sea Legs. It's a good song, and Buddy seemed to like it a great deal. Too bad the show closed after 11 performances. The song was by Michael Cleary and Arthur Swanstrom.

The B-side of that song was "A Star Is Born," from the film of the same name - the original version with Janet Gaynor and Fredric Marsh. The music is by the famed Max Steiner, with lyrics by Dorothy Dick. Clark is earnest but he realizes that this isn't the best song he's ever tootled. Eddy is clangorous, as he tended to be.

I enjoy Edgar Leslie and Joe Burke's "The Camera Doesn't Lie (Neither Do I)," and Clark and Duchin seemed to have fun as well. Billy Rose had this one written for the Aquacade show he mounted at the 1937 Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland.

"Heaven Help This Heart of Mine" is another nice piece of songwriting. It's by Hugh Williams and Jimmy Kennedy. The original recording was by the American-born British bandleader Roy Fox. Here we have a very skillful vocal from Clark.

With Johnny Hodges

Johnny Hodges

Clark was in decidedly more relaxed company when he met up with a Johnny Hodges group for another 1937 date. Hodges was of course the longtime Duke Ellington alto saxophonist, who occasionally had his own date, usually in company with some of his Ellington bandmates. Here, everyone on the date was in Duke's ensemble except for the vocalist. There are three songs, with an alternate take added for one number.

You will hear Cootie Williams on trumpet, Barney Bigard on clarinet and Harry Carney on baritone sax. The playing is masterful, and Clark's singing is at the same high level.

The songs are all excellent. "Foolin' Myself" is by Jack Lawrence and Peter Tinturin. Al Bryan and Joe Santly wrote "You'll Never Go to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)."

There are two takes of "A Sailboat in the Moonlight," by Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb. (The alternate is from a bootleg.) Make sure you have heard the brilliant version of "Sailboat" from Billie Holiday, Lester Young et al.

Solo Recordings II

Buddy recorded two songs from Rodgers and Hart's 1938 show I Married an Angel - the title song and the instant standard "Spring Is Here." I featured Clark's renditions a while ago, in a post devoted to the contemporary recordings from the show, but have included them here as well.

The final recordings, also for Vocalion, are more esoteric. "Let Me Whisper" started life as "Murmullo" by Dick Gasparre and Manuel Del Rio (the original label credits Electo Rosell), as recorded by the Trio Garcia of Mexico. Buddy makes it into a nice tango ballad, with English words from Edward Heyman.

"Beside a Moonlit Stream" came from Booloo, a jungle adventure film. The songwriters were Sam Coslow and a Hollander who may be the German composer Frederick Hollander. IMDb doesn't tell us if the number was actually used in the movie. Regardless, it doesn't really come off in this recording.

More Clark in the 1930s

There have been four previous posts devoted to Buddy's commercial recordings of the 1930s:

• A set with Lud Gluskin's orchestra

• With the bands of Dick McDonough and Nat Brandwynne

• With ensembles led by Freddy Martin, Archie Bleyer, Ruby Newman and Wayne King (plus duets with Hildegarde)

• More with with Archie Bleyer and Ruby Newman, along with the bands of Benny Goodman, Joe Moss, Bob Causer and Joe Reichman

Once again, thanks to discographer Nigel Burlinson, whose work was invaluable in assembling these posts.

Let me mention that I am also planning to feature transcriptions from the same period, as mentioned in the initial post about this series.

LINK

From the Back Room: Anita Ellis in the 40s, Vol. 2

This is the second in a three-part series devoted to vocalist Anita Ellis' recordings in the 1940s. (The first installment is here.)

Today in this "From the Back Room" post, we have Anita's 10 sides for Mercury Records and her dubbing assignments for Rita Hayworth in Gilda and for Vera-Ellen in Three Little Words, plus one item with Eddy Duchin. There are 21 cuts altogether.

Ellis had become popular on the radio and via AFRS recordings by the time these songs were recorded. She was already a polished artist when her first commercial disc was made.

Mercury Recordings

I have found 10 recordings that Ellis made for Mercury in 1946 and 1947. Most of these dates were conducted by Harry Geller, a former big band trumpeter who later led his own ensemble and worked in films.

Harry Geller

Anita's first number is "Either It's Love or It Isn't," a Doris Fisher-Allan Roberts song used in the Bogie noir Dead Reckoning. There it was mouthed by Lizabeth Scott, dubbed by Trudy Richards - interesting because Scott later came out with an LP of her own. It's a good tune, little remembered these days.

Like its discmate above, "The Old Lamplighter" was recorded by any number of artists at the time. Several artists did well with the Charles Tobias-Nat Simon song, Ellis not among them, although her version is entirely sympathetic. The Browns had a big hit with the number in 1960.

The Romanian composer Iosif Ivanovici wrote "Waves of the Danube" in 1880, and Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin adapted it into "The Anniversary Song" for The Jolson Story in 1946. Anita's version is heartfelt.

Johnny Green and Yip Harburg wrote the semi-standard "I'm Yours" in 1930. Ellis and Geller revived it as the flip side of "The Anniversary Song."

Burke and Van Heusen wrote "As Long as I'm Dreaming" for Bing to warble in 1947's Welcome Stranger. A nice song that's no longer heard in a sincere reading and an overly complex arrangement from Geller. The flip is another current song, "Ask Anyone Who Knows." I believe the hit was by the Ink Spots.

Eddie Kassen and Desmond O'Connor wrote "How Lucky You Are" in 1947. Now forgotten, this lovely postwar song is done well by Ellis. Several other artists recorded it back then. The flip side was a revival of "They Can't Take that Away from Me," which the Gershwins penned for Fred Astaire 10 years earlier. Dick Maltby's arrangements for this coupling are just as fussy as some of Geller's. Anita's warmth shines through, though.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the excellent song "Love for Love" for the film Escape Me Never, with lyrics by Aldo Franchetti and Ted Koehler. Peg La Centra dubbed Ida Lupino in the film.

"Golden Earrings" is from the film of the same name; music by Victor Young, words by Livingston and Evans. The biggest hit version was by Peggy Lee, but Anita's is a worthy contender.

Dubbing Hayworth

Rita Hayworth as Gilda

It may not be apparent in her earlier work, but one of Ellis' most enduring characteristics was her ability to sound sultry. This made her a perfect match for Rita Hayworth in the latter's defining role as Gilda, a very dark film noir with a happy ending. (Don't tell anyone I told you.)

Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher wrote two fine songs for the film - "Amado Mio" and, most famously, "Put the Blame on Mame." Anita's vocal performances are justly almost as famous as Hayworth's visuals. The singer's recordings of the two numbers for Standard Transcriptions will appear in Vol. 3 of this series.

One with Eddie Duchin

The US Navy sponsored The Eddy Duchin Show, a public service program sent out to radio stations on transcription discs. We have one song from this series that featured Duchin, a popular pianist - "What Is This Thing Called Love." It's a Cole Porter song from 1929 that Ellis does in her best alluring Gilda manner. I've also included the spoken intro - contrived, as those things usually were. The song, however, is one of the best things in this set.

Three Little Words

Three Little Words lobby card

When M-G-M put their biopic of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby into production in 1949, the producers engaged Ellis to dub Vera-Ellen, who was playing Jessie Brown Kalmar, partner and wife of Fred Astaire's Bert.

Anita had three songs. The first was the charming duet with Astaire, "Where Did You Get That Girl?" This is presented in two versions - the first as heard on the soundtrack, the second as presented on a single. The former has a more extended instrumental close; the latter has an extra vocal chorus, which I believe may be a clone of the first chorus. Note that Ellis received label credit for her singing, unusual at the time.

Next, Anita has a solo with "Come On, Papa," adopting a thick quasi-French accent.

"Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" one of the most enduring Kalmar-Ruby songs, is an Astaire-Ellis duet. Again, this is presented in two versions, the first from the soundtrack, the second with a additional (cloned) chorus at the end, as it appeared on the Three Little Words LP.

Finally, the song that turned me into an Anita Ellis fan several decades ago - her version of "Thinking of You," a matchless combination of warmth, tenderness and just fine singing. One again, two versions: from the single, which clones an earlier phrase at its conclusion, and the soundtrack, which continues with Latin dance music for another 30 seconds or so.

The music director and conductor on the film was the 20-year-old André Previn. The listed orchestrator was Leo Arnaud, assisted by the uncredited Robert Franklyn, Wally Heglin and Conrad Salinger.

The third and final volume of Anita Ellis' 1940s recordings will include 24 songs recorded for Standard Transcriptions.

LINK to Anita Ellis in the 1940s, Vol. 2